Monday, June 18, 2007

Majority of Democratic freshmen break with party to join with Tancredo

Like so many others on the political right opposed to non-vital interventionism and nation building, I was conflicted over the 2006 mid-term election results. The Democratic sweep, historically unprecedented in that the party did not forfeit a single seat while snatching up 30 from their incumbent Republican rivals, was clearly a rebuke of the war in Iraq.

But the self-destruction caused by the Bush Administration's war left me worried that the President, with the castigation of his party, would eagerly team up with the new Democratically-controlled Congress to pass a 1986 amnesty repeat. On that cool November evening I could already envision glowing media stories about a new era of 'compromise' and 'bi-partisanship' in Washington, with Senator Ted Kennedy standing behind Bush as he signed IRCA 2.0 into law.

But parsing through the rhetoric of the victorious Democratic rookies a few days after the elections boosted my spirits a bit. Overwhelmingly, this freshman class stressed enforcement-first while being critical of the Bush Administration's dereliction of duty in failing to penalize employers for workplace violations and for failing to halt the illegal influx.

Included in the yes-votes were 49 Democrats. What's especially noteworthy is that 17 of these pro-sovereignty Democrats are members of the rookie class. Among the 180 Democrats opposed to the resolution (six sat the vote out), only 13 are newly-elected representatives. That is, while 57% of Democrats who beat out their Republican incumbent challengers in '06 voted in favor of Tancredo's amendment, only 16% of the Democratic old guard did. The freshmen aren't willing to dutifully tow the Pelosi line.

1 comment:

JSBolton
said...

The Republican national leadership has no way to be for minorities, except possibly by matching the democrats in terms of favoringimmigrants.They are afraid to have no minority constituency to use for photo opportunities and high-profile quota jobs.They will do anything to avoid having to stand up to leftist smear attempts; but the voters can and will punish this cowardice and irresponsibility.